“Where Two Rivers Meet” – Film

“Where Two Rivers Meet” is created by the award-winning filmmaker Eelyn Lee.

The film tells the story of Collections in Verse: Sheffield, which saw collaborations between communities, libraries and poets. Throughout the film, we see the incredible work of Open Kitchen Social Club and libraries across Sheffield, who transformed to support communities in need throughout the pandemic.

Eelyn Lee is an award-winning artist and filmmaker who has exhibited across the UK and internationally. Eelyn’s socially engaged practice combines collective research, devised theatre, screen writing and filmmaking to create frameworks for ensembles of collaborators to work together. Her Chinese/English heritage motivates her interest in race, identity and ’othering’. 

Digesting History has been created as part of Collections in Verse, a collaboration between Poet in the City, the British Library and Sheffield Libraries using poetry events and commissions to bring British Library exhibitions to life in four cities across the UK. The work in Sheffield was inspired by the British Library’s sold-out exhibition Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War.

Commissioned by Poet in the City and British Library for Collections in Verse 2021 ©

In preparing this project, we have, as is common, called this period of history Anglo-Saxon. However, on the point of presentation we have become aware of a conversation that challenges that terminology as racist and prefers Early Medieval. We used the term Anglo-Saxon in good faith and welcome further conversations and discussions for future projects. The continual need to re-examine history and language is at the core of Poet in the City’s collaborations.